Russian Roulette
by clagjanet
Summary: Sundance AU #9. Those sneaky Soviets get more than they bargained for when they try to get one of their agents back from American custody.
1. Fish Tales

All characters remain the property of Warner Bros and Shoot the Moon Productions.

* * *

"Okay, so the fish food is right here, and if you can just check the filter and the temperature every other day that should be all the men really need to survive."

Amanda stooped down to watch the lazy movement of the fish in the tank for a moment before looking back up at Lee with a grin. "How is it possible that this tank is so pristine and the rest of your apartment is so…" She let the sentence drift off as she gestured to the cluttered room.

"Well, the one lesson I learned growing up is that your men's comfort always comes before your own," answered Lee, without thinking as he attempted to get his bag to close around a tennis racket. "Besides," he went on quickly trying to cover up that accidental slip, "The apartment isn't that bad!" He surveyed the room for a beat before adding, "I mean, yeah, it's untidy, but…"

"You're a pack rat, Butch," Amanda teased him. "Don't even try to deny it."

"I am not! I just have an eye for collectibles, that's all!"

Amanda leaned down and picked up a stack of takeout menus from the coffee table and began flipping through them, lips twitching. "Oh yes, I imagine the Smithsonian will be looking for an archive like this someday – the history of DC junk food places that have been shut down by the Health Department." She began picking up some of the dirty plates and glasses scattered around the room. "Tell you what, I'll just straighten up a bit before I go, so that you don't come home to too many science experiments."

"No, no, you really don't need to do that!" Lee said wildly.

In response, Amanda held out a coffee cup that was half full and had a dead fly floating in it. "I do if you don't want the Health Department closing this place down too."

Lee looked around helplessly, knowing that she was going to do it anyway – he'd just given her a key to his apartment and _carte blanche_ for two weeks. "Maybe I could just get the doorman…"

"I won't snoop, Lee," he heard her say and turned to see her looking at him, head tilted to one side. "If that's what you're worried about."

Lee flushed, ashamed he'd assumed she'd do exactly that. "Sorry, force of habit… spies and their privacy, you know," he hedged.

"Oh yeah, I know. There are days where I still wonder if you've even told me your real name," Amanda replied with an eye roll, as she walked into the kitchen and began to run the water. "So – Bermuda, huh? That'll be fun."

Lee gratefully seized the change in subject. "Yeah – white sand beaches and blue skies. You ever been?"

Amanda looked up laughing. "Oh my gosh, no. Closest I ever got to that was my honeymoon in Myrtle Beach."

"Oh - sorry," he apologized. "I mean, I'm sure Myrtle Beach was great."

"Yeah, it was," said Amanda, staring out the window over the sink for a moment, smile flitting briefly across her face. "I mean, it wasn't glamorous, but I was straight out of college and Joe was going into law school – we didn't have a lot of money for a big trip and besides, we didn't much care where we went as long as we were together." She turned her attention back to the sink. Lee waited for her to continue the story, a little surprised when she changed the subject back instead. "But I'm glad you finally managed to get some time off – you deserve it. I hear your takedown of Rostov was amazing – Francine's been on a real roll with her Sound of Music jokes."

"Yeah, it was nice to get that guy off the most wanted list. And it will be even nicer to get away for a while," he agreed. "But what about you? Didn't I hear you were taking some time off next week?"

"Yep, but I'm not going anywhere, I'm just taking some time off to organize stuff for Jamie's birthday. I had to come up with a new plan – Dean told him he'd try and get Pretzel the Clown from the station to come to his party but after we broke up, I didn't want to ask him."

Lee barely restrained his own eye roll. It was so like Amanda to use her vacation days to make sure someone else had a good time. "So what's the new plan?"

"Well, we're still going to have a party, of course, but we're going to take him and some of his friends over to that theater in Rosslyn that plays second-run movies for half-price, you know the one?" She laughed when Lee shrugged his shoulders and looked confused. "No, of course you don't. Anyway, they're showing that movie about the guy trapped in a video game that came out last year - Jamie really wanted to see it but even though it was a Disney movie, it was rated PG and he was only six and a half, so it was out of the question."

Lee ignored the fact that he had no idea what movie she was talking about and went with the flow. "But now that's he's almost an old man of eight, he's ready for it?"

Amanda's eyes twinkled at him. "He's a very mature eight." She shrugged lightly and went on with washing the dishes. "I mean, what he really wants is a trip to Epcot Center, but that's a bit beyond the budget for now." She glanced up and caught the tail end of Lee's hastily hidden grimace. "Oh I'm sorry – that sounds like I'm jealous of your trip and I'm not! You really do deserve a vacation and it's not like we're not ever going to get to go – just not for a while until I get some money saved up."

Lee restrained himself from making an offer to help pay for a trip knowing she wouldn't accept it – and wondering what on earth was making him even think of offering it in the first place. He'd heard a lot about Jamie and Phillip, of course, but it wasn't like he'd ever met them - or was likely to - but still, they were the centre of Amanda's world and he felt the tug of wanting to please her by pleasing them. It was a new feeling for him and he raced to shrug it off.

"Guess I'd better get going if I'm going to make my flight," he said with a twinge of guilt that he was leaving her elbows deep in soapy water. "You know, you _really_ don't need to do that."

"Too late – I'm mostly done now anyway," she smiled at him. "Go have a good time, Butch, and I'll see you in a week."

"Yeah." he walked to pick up his bag and head to the door. "Amanda? Try to stay out of trouble, okay?"

Amanda looked at him wide-eyed. "Why, Butch, what trouble can I possibly get into between my house and your apartment?"

Lee shook his head and sighed. "I shouldn't have asked."


	2. Fishing Trip

When, in later days, Lee was willing to let her make jokes about it, Amanda would tease him that it was his habit of leaving half-full mugs of coffee everywhere that caused the whole thing.

Her oven had chosen today of all days to break down and figuring Lee wouldn't mind as long as she left him something in the freezer, she'd brought everything over to the apartment to bake Jamie's birthday cake. Actually, she'd brought extra ingredients to try a test cake because she wasn't entirely sure Lee's oven even worked properly since she wasn't even sure he'd ever used it and with that safely underway, she'd started cleaning her baking equipment for round two. It had seemed like a good idea to do a quick check for other dirty dishes, and indeed, she had found cups in the bathroom, the bedroom, and the table by the front door. However, it was the one she missed, the one that came tumbling down off the shelf above the record player when she went to straighten up, the one that drenched her with week-old coffee - that was the one that set it all in motion.

Amanda was surprised her screech of dismay didn't bring the neighbors running but then again, in Washington, discretion tended to be the better part of valor, so the lack of any reaction wasn't that odd. She stood there for a moment, dripping coffee down onto the carpet before realizing there was no way she could stay in the shirt for the rest of the afternoon. Sighing, she ventured into Lee's room and dug through a drawer to find a clean t-shirt she could borrow and pulled off her own, replacing it with his.

"Well, I may as well do his laundry now," she thought, and began to pick up the various things Lee had left scattered on the floor and around the room. Returning to the living room with an armload, she dropped it on the sofa and prepared to sort through them. With the oven on, the apartment suddenly seemed stuffy and she walked to the window to open it, leaning out to take a deep breath of the crisp autumn air. "That's better, isn't it, Fishies?" she asked rhetorically.

Turning back to the sofa, she started to organize the jumble of clothes, carefully setting aside the shirts that needed new buttons and the ones that needed to be soaked to get stains off them. As she went, she emptied the pockets, laughing to herself over the seemingly endless pieces of paper with girls' names and numbers on them. "An eye for collectibles, indeed," she muttered, smoothing them out and making a neat pile. It was obvious from the way they were balled up most of the time that Lee had no intention of calling most of them – he was an incorrigible flirt but he'd have to date every night of the week to even make a dent in the pile, and she knew he didn't. For a moment, her mind drifted back to that nameless blonde at James Delano's party who had cornered him and how that in turn had led to that crazy cover as a billionaire's wife a few weeks before. Yet those quiet nights at the house in Georgetown hadn't seemed to bother him at all – outside of that one cancelled date that she knew about, he'd never mentioned missing out on doing something else because of the case they'd found themselves embroiled in.

No, she decided, despite his office reputation, Lee collected a lot of things, but notches on the bedpost weren't really among them. It still didn't stop her from carefully placing the scraps of paper in a small pile on the corner of the small desk in the corner – just in case.

Noticing something sticking out from under the sofa cushion, she tugged it out, and found herself eyeballing a lacy bra.

"Okay, Scarecrow," she laughed quietly to herself, as she tossed it on top of the laundry pile. "Maybe a few notches."

She glanced at her watch, wondering if Francine was on her way yet. Lee had agreed – somewhat unwillingly – to letting Francine borrow the Porsche for a cover and they'd worked it out so she could drop the keys back while Amanda was there to let her in. When the phone rang, she picked it up absentmindedly, forgetting that Lee would likely have his calls forwarded to a service.

"Hello?"

"Scarecrow?"

"Yes. I mean, no, not…" The dial tone buzzed in her ear instantly, leaving her shaking her head. "Spies," she muttered. "Everything has to be so mysterious."

She'd already forgotten the call ten minutes later when she heard the door swing open as she pulled the cake out. She wasn't worried since she was expecting Francine and even started to greet her as she turned around before realizing that it wasn't her, it was a tall mustachioed man with a gun pointed at her. "Oh my gosh," she managed to get out before he was pulling her out of the kitchen, then pushing her to sit onto the sofa.

"I thought the famous Scarecrow would be more careful," he sneered. "But then again, I also thought the famous Scarecrow was a man."

"Oh, I'm not Scarecrow!" said Amanda relieved that it was all a misunderstanding.

"Oh you're not, huh?" he asked in a sarcastic tone. "Because we just saw you at the window, you just answered the phone saying you were, you're in the right apartment and you're in a t-shirt that says 'Scarecrows do it out standing in their field'.

Amanda looked down at the shirt and grimaced. "I'm just visiting," she tried again.

"Uh huh," said Mustache. "And that's not your bra on the laundry pile?"

"No!" she replied. "Of course it isn't! I would never wear something with that much lace! It's much too scratchy!"

"Sure you wouldn't," he laughed. "I heard Scarecrow was a master seducer but I didn't realize you advertised!" He held up the coffee soaked t-shirt with 'Hot Mama' emblazoned across it.

"That was a gift from my sons!" Amanda said, blushing.

"Sons? I don't think so. I mean, I don't see anything in here that says 'kids', do you?" replied Mustache, looking around meaningfully.

"That's because I don't live here!" said Amanda triumphantly.

There was a moment of hesitation then, just a second when she thought he might have believed her and she was just beginning to relax when the front door swung open and Francine walked in with a breezy "Hi Honey! I'm home! What's in the big box in the hallway?"

Unlike Amanda, Francine's instinct for danger was stronger, and she had her gun out and trained on the stranger before the words had even finished leaving her mouth, but it was only a second later when she heard the click of a gun cocking and pointed at her own head by the blond man who had followed her into the apartment.

"Drop it", he growled, and then kicked it across the room once she had. He pushed her to join Amanda on the sofa. "This one just drove up driving that sports car he's supposed to drive so maybe he's a she?" he asked his companion.

"So either one of them might be Scarecrow?" asked Mustache in confusion.

"Oh Buddy, you are really barking up the wrong tree," Francine began to laugh before watching their gaze swing back to Amanda. "Neither of us are Scarecrow, you morons."

The two men looked at each other, neither quite certain what they should do next.

"I mean, come on, does this look like a woman's apartment?" Francine asked, trying to press home the advantage.

Also in later days, Lee would always remind Amanda that while his old cup of coffee might have started the whole thing, it was her maternal habit of attempting to do seven things at once that really sealed the deal. After Francine asked her question, they all looked around, first at the pile of laundry with the t-shirt and bra on top, then the cake out of the counter cooling and lastly, the stack of party invitations she had out to start writing while the cake baked.

"Well, yeah," answered Mustache. "So which one of you is Scarecrow?"

Neither woman answered until Blond Guy placed his revolver against Amanda's temple. "He asked you a question. Which one of you is Scarecrow?"

"I am," Amanda and Francine answered in unison, then turned to look at each other, startled.

"No she's not, I am" they both said, again almost in unison.

The men glanced at each other, rolling their eyes. "Okay Ladies," said Mustache. "I guess we'll just have to take you both and sort it out back at base."

He walked out the apartment door and pulled in the large wooden box on a dolly that Francine had commented on when she arrived. Pulling off the lid, he gestured to it with the gun. "Hop in."

"Are you crazy? I'm not going anywhere with you!" replied Francine, eyebrow arched superciliously. "And certainly not in a box!"

Blond Guy lifted his revolver and pointed it at Amanda. "Get in. Both of you."

Francine and Amanda exchanged a grimace before Amanda moved forward and gingerly climbed in.

"Sorry it's going to be a bit crowded," mocked Mustache. "We only ordered the box for one."

"That figures," Francine snorted. "You just can't get good kidnappers these days. The goon's expression didn't crack as Francine glared at him before following Amanda into the box, the two of them adjusting themselves to fit side by side facing each other. "Well, isn't this cozy?" she remarked acidly before the goons hammered the wooden lid closed on top of them and they felt themselves being rolled out of the apartment.

Amanda closed her eyes and took a deep breath, obviously trying to calm down.

"What were you thinking?" Francine whispered at her angrily. "Why would you say you're Scarecrow?"

"Well, I thought if they got you, then they'd have a real agent and that would be bad but if they got me, sooner or later they'd figure out I'm just a nobody and they'd let me go," Amanda whispered back. "I mean, if I'm no use to anybody, why would they keep me, right?"

"You're half right - but the question you should have asked yourself is why would they keep you alive?" Francine wished she could take the words back the moment she heard Amanda's sharp intake of breath and felt her recoil against the side of the crate. "Okay, look, never mind. We can use this to our advantage if they don't know which one is which, so whatever you do, just keep contradicting yourself. Although if we only knew who wanted Lee so badly, that would be helpful."

"Quiet," came a voice from outside the box, accompanied by a heavy thud as he kicked the box. "The boss won't care if we have to shoot you as long as you're not dead."

"At least then we'd have air holes!" Francine yelled back at them, hoping maybe shouting would attract some help. "Honestly, where did this boss find you guys? Morons R Us?" The only response was another loud kick right beside her head.

" _Who's the boss?"_ Amanda whispered the burning question.

"Guess we'll find out soon enough," she breathed out just loud enough for Amanda to hear her.


	3. Afternoon at the Russian Tea Room

By the time they finally heard the welcome sound of the lid being pried off the box, Francine had a long mental list of who could want Lee this badly but somehow Nicholas Zinoviev aka The Spider hadn't crossed her mind as a possibility - possibly because he was supposed to be safely running his spy ring from Moscow and not in what appeared to be a comfortable house somewhere in the suburbs. Her surprise was tinged with annoyance that he didn't recognize her, but then again, the Soviets were notorious for underestimating the value of female agents and with so many strings in his own web, it was pretty likely she was off his radar.

" _Good_ " she thought. _"What he doesn't know_ _can_ _hurt him."_

She looked around, trying to spot any escape routes but couldn't see any. The windows were unobtrusively barred and the front door that she could see past the goons was dead-bolted. A new voice entered the conversation and she turned to look at the new arrival. She knew she should recognize him, but couldn't place him right away.

" _Efraim and his stupid memory thing would know,_ " she thought glumly as she schooled her face to a haughty look of scorn.

Zinoviev, who had looked surprised when the box opened to reveal two people inside was now positively cackling with glee and had clasped his hands together in delight. "Two agents? This is really excellent work!"

"Not two agents," Francine interrupted him. "She's a civilian."

"No, I'm not," said Amanda immediately, following Francine's orders to contradict everything. "She's the civilian."

"Really?" Zinoviev gave Amanda a complete head-to-toe look-over as she blushed. "Because you have to admit, she does look more like an agent than you do right now."

"Well, it was my day off," said Amanda truthfully. "I usually look much better than this."

"She was the one that said she was Scarecrow when we called," said Mustache helpfully. "But then this one showed up later in that sports car you told us about." He paused and glared at them. "But then they both said they were."

Zinoviev chuckled, obviously pleased with the situation. "Delightful. Simply delightful," he smiled. "So we have either Scarecrow and her companion, or Scarecrow and another agent. You see Arcady? No need to worry about your mission. Now we have double the value for trade - we can get both Rostov and your airplane schematics!"

" _Arcady Popov - of course_ " Francine thought. " _How the hell did he get in the country without us knowing?_ "

None of this showed on her face, of course, as she continued to stare coldly at Zinoviev. "I thought Russians were supposed to be famous for their hospitality," she said with a pointed look at the tea tray.

"Of course, of course!" beamed Zinoviev. "Please, both of you sit down, and I will… What is it the British say? Oh yes! I will be Mother." He waited for Amanda and Francine to perch side by side on the sofa before carefully pouring out two servings in lovely porcelain tea cups and handing them over.

Amanda waited for a beat until she saw Francine drinking hers before lifting it to her lips, restraining herself from gulping it down as she realized for the first time just how thirsty she was after all the adrenaline surges of the past hour.

"Biscuit?" Zinoviev held out a plate, eyes twinkling.

This time, Francine waited until Amanda had taken one before reaching for the plate.

Zinoviev leaned back in his chair, watching them with a smile dancing across his face. "Now, this is interesting. Do you wait for the other to eat or drink first because she is Scarecrow and you want to know it is safe? Or do you wait because it is polite not to look greedy?"

Amanda stared back at him blankly, which made him smile ever more broadly. He gestured for the butler who had been hovering to come closer and murmured an instruction to him, before sitting back and sipping his own tea while he studied the two of them. A few moments later, the butler returned carrying a Polaroid camera.

"I think a picture to mark the occasion, don't you?" Zinoviev commented. "Cheese," he chuckled to himself as Francine and Amanda both glared at him while he snapped a photo. As the camera whirred and spat out the picture, he waved it gently before looking it over and nodding happily. "Now that should give the Agency something to think about." His expression turned sorrowful. "And now, I am so sorry but I'm afraid I'm going to have to lock you in the cellar until we get word back from your superiors. So inhospitable I know, but you understand my position, I'm sure."

As he finished speaking, Blond Guy and Mustache stepped forward and pulled them to their feet, then pushed them toward the door.

"You don't need to shove," Amanda reprimanded them. "Honestly, just because you're betraying your country doesn't mean you have to be so _rude_."

Mustache rolled his eyes and looked at Blond Guy "Jeez, I'm pretty sure this one is Scarecrow because she's brainless enough to annoy the guy with a gun pointed at her."

"Or she's smart enough to try and rile you up," replied his partner. "Move it along, Ladies."

A few minutes later, she and Francine found themselves imprisoned in a small room in the basement of the house with no exit other than the guarded door. They sat down at the table and looked gloomily around at the bare walls.

"So what happens now?" asked Amanda in a small voice.

"We wait," said Francine in a voice that did little to cover how tense she was. "That was Nicholas Zinoviev upstairs – he's a kind of fix-it guy for the Soviets, so we're not in danger from him as long as we're useful pawns in whatever little game he's playing, but it could take a while."

"Oh my gosh," Amanda dropped her head in her hands. "My family is expecting me home soon. Jamie's birthday is this weekend and I'm supposed to be the classroom parent for Phillip next week. I can't be stuck in a basement waiting to see if I'm going to be shipped off to Russia because they think I'm Lee!"

Her voice had been rising in pitch, if not volume, as she spoke and Francine reached out to grab her hand, biting her tongue not to point out how very petty those concerns were in the situation they found themselves in. It was easy to forget sometimes that Amanda was still only an untrained civilian, no matter how many crazy things she'd ended up in the middle of. "Calm down, Amanda. It's going to be less than an hour before they have that picture in Billy's hands with a ransom note and then the whole Agency will be looking for us."

Amanda nodded, gulping slightly. "They will?"

"Of course they will," said Francine firmly. "So tell me," she went on encouragingly. "Where does your family think you are? Will it really be a problem if you're home late?"

Amanda gave a watery laugh. "I told Mother my friend was going to let me use his oven if I helped him take his St. Bernard to the vet because it wouldn't fit in his car."

Francine started to laugh, recalling that conversation with Amanda back when they'd only just started to get to know each other and Amanda had made her laugh with her suggestion that Lee would get even more girls with a puppy than his Porsche. "What did you say was wrong with it?"

The distraction was working wonders at cheering up Amanda as her laugh began to bubble up. "I told her it was hungover." As Francine's peal of laughter burst out, she couldn't help but join in. "It was just the first thing that popped in my head, but I don't think she believed me." She looked around the bare room and sighed. "But she really wouldn't believe this."

Francine grimaced. "My mother would be appalled to know that all her best efforts to make me ladylike have landed me here. All those deportment lessons and cotillions wasted."

"So how did you end up here?" asked Amanda seizing on the opportunity to learn a little more about Francine's background. "Not here-here obviously, but at the Agency?"

"Well, that's also my mother's fault, funnily enough," remarked Francine. "She thought sending me to Sarah Lawrence would get me in the right circles for my M-R-S and instead it turned out to be one of the main hunting grounds for Agency recruiters." She smiled and shook her head. "Definitely not what she had planned."

"Does she know what you do?"

"Not really. I keep it vague – you know, make it sound like I'm just an information analyst but that I get to go to all the best parties – that cheers her up, thinking I might meet and marry a Kennedy or something. It's easier now that she and Daddy have retired to Palm Springs and are 3000 miles away."

"And not down the hall in your house? That does sound easier," Amanda remarked.

"Mmm," replied Francine noncommittally. "Well, most days I miss Moline more than my mother. Our family housekeeper," she explained. "She practically brought me up."

"But never taught you to cook?" teased Amanda.

"My mother didn't believe in that either," said Francine, with a quick smile. "I was supposed to marry well enough to have my own Moline. And then when I decided maybe I should know how, so I could surprise Efraim with a home-cooked meal for his birthday, I signed up for classes with Mrs. Welch."

Amanda tried to stifle her chuckle, but only managed to snort instead.

"Oh it's funny now," agreed Francine, rolling her eyes. "But I've never been able to look at a peach puff the same way since."

"Maybe you split the difference on that M-R-S and marry a man who cooks and keep him in the manner to which you're accustomed," quipped Amanda.

"If I ever marry Efraim, it will be for his brisket," agreed Francine.

"That's how I feel about Lee's frittata," chuckled Amanda. "Although not so much that Japanese thing." She paused and stared into space for a moment, thinking about those quiet nights at the house in Georgetown when Lee had insisted on doing all the cooking to keep her off her bad ankle. "Do you think anyone's told him?" she asked, quietly.

"That you don't like his _motoyaki_?" Francine smiled, turning serious when Amanda turned to look at her with worried eyes. "I don't know," she admitted with a shrug. "If they think they can do a trade quickly, there'd be no reason to tell him and every reason to keep him out of it, so those idiots upstairs don't figure out who he is."

"So you think they'll make the trade?" Amanda wasn't certain they would, knowing the work that had gone into capturing Rostov in the first place, but surely they wouldn't leave them here?

"Guess we'll find out soon enough," said Francine, trying to sound calmer than she felt. "But in the meantime, you gotta tell me… Why are you wearing one of Lee's shirts? And don't tell me it's not because I had that made for him."

Amanda glanced down then back up guiltily. "It's not what it looks like."

"I'm sure it isn't but tell me anyway."

Amanda gave a quick smile and started to tell the story, while Francine leaned back, half-listening so that she could respond, but her mind going a million miles a minute trying to figure out what to do next.


	4. Trading Cards

Billy had opened the envelope with the photo inside only ten minutes before his phone rang.

" _As you can see, we have both Scarecrow and a bonus guest. We would like Rostov back. You have one hour to make up your mind."_

"Now wait just a damn minute," Billy snarled. "We don't just make trade deals when we don't know who we're dealing with! How do we know you'll keep your end of any bargain?"

A genial chuckle sounded in his ear. " _But of course, very wise of you. But how would I prove such a thing? You know I have your agents - if you would like them both back, you will need to simply trust me. The word of Nicholas Zinoviev should be enough, should it not? Even in America, you must have heard that I always do what I promise to do._ "

Billy took a moment to get himself under control, not wanting his voice to show how shaken he was at hearing who had the two women and the veiled threat implicit in that comment. "I don't trust anyone I haven't dealt with before, no matter their reputation. And you don't have Scarecrow! You don't even have two agents - you have one agent and a civilian. Don't tell me you want it splashed all over the intelligence world that you purposely harmed an innocent!"

The accented voice turned thoughtful. " _You make a good point, if what you are saying is true - but, of course, how do we know what you are saying is true?"_

"Haven't they told you who they are?" asked Billy incredulously.

" _They have told me many things,"_ purred the voice. " _All of them contradictory."_

Billy dropped his head into his hand. _What on earth had they told him? Why would they think Francine was Scarecrow?_ He thought quickly. "Well, if you'll release Mrs. King as a gesture of goodwill, then I'll be able to take the offer to trade Rostov to my superiors."

" _I think I will need more than that… perhaps the schematics for the upgraded navigation kits for an F-10 jet that Rostov had in his possession when you arrested him? Would that not be a fair exchange for your "civilian"?"_

Billy now knew two things: they probably didn't believe Amanda was a civilian and if someone was sniffing around for F-10 parts, he'd bet his bottom dollar Arcady Popov was involved somehow, working some kind of shady deal for his Zanirian customers in the Middle East.

"You must know F-10 equipment has been phased out since our Air Force retired them over ten years ago," he bluffed. "I don't even know if there are schematics like that"

There was another long thoughtful silence, then " _You had best find them though. I will give you three hours._ "

"Three hours! Are you crazy?" Billy began to argue but it was too late - the call had been cut off and Duffy's shaking head from the bullpen told him they hadn't been able to trace it in time. He stared around helplessly - how was it possible the two people he would normally call on right now - Lee and Francine - were both gone? He picked up the phone again and punched in an unlikely extension. "Beaman? Get up here."

.

* * *

"They have agreed to the trade?" Popov sounded incredulous as if he couldn't quite believe Zinoviev's machinations had actually worked.

"They have agreed to the first part," answered Zinoviev smoothly. "The civilian for the schematics." He gave a slight frown. "Which leaves us with just the one problem - deciding which one that is."

Popov choked on his tea. "You mean, you still haven't figured that out?"

"No, both women are insistent that they are the Scarecrow and that the other one is lying," said Zinoviev, the annoyance showing on his face. "But Melrose at the Agency says the dark-haired woman is a civilian."

"So what is the problem then?"

"I am not sure I can trust the Americans," admitted Zinoviev. "It is possible they would simply tell us that in order to get the Scarecrow back."

Popov considered that for a moment before venturing to ask, "Do you really think they would lie?"

"I would, in their place," replied Zinoviev with a shrug. "What does one insignificant civilian matter when the stakes are this high? It is like a poisoned cup – if we guess wrong, they end up with both Scarecrow and Rostov."

"I don't think Americans think like that," said Popov, sounding uncertain. "In my experience, they are much too sentimental for their own good."

"No," said Zinoviev. "I am almost certain they are lying." he nodded firmly as if he'd convinced himself then turned to his henchmen. "Bring the blonde upstairs. Blindfold her and put her in the van. We have an important meeting to get to."


	5. Red Rover, Red Rover

"You heard me, Melrose! The committee has decided that we will do exactly nothing!" Fredericks snapped. "You had your chance to do the trade, it didn't work out – and now that the higher-ups know what's going on – you don't get to play tradesies anymore, do you understand?"

"Damn it, Dirk, we have to do _something_! They may not have Scarecrow but Francine Desmond is still one of our best agents! And Amanda King is an innocent civilian – how can they justify leaving her in the hands of the Soviet system?"

"Because Rostov is a far more valuable intelligence asset than they are combined, innocent or not," growled Fredericks. "It might have been different if they actually had Scarecrow, but since they don't, the question is moot. Those women just aren't important enough."

"I think Scarecrow might have something to say about that," said Efraim, speaking for the first time since Fredericks had walked in. Few people had ever heard that dangerous tone in his voice and Fredericks wasn't wise enough to recognize it.

"And who are you exactly?" he asked Efraim in an irritated tone. "And why would I care what you think?"

Efraim opened his mouth to answer, stopping himself just in time as he caught Billy's small headshake.

"Mr. Beaman is the expert I have working on the audiotapes of the phone calls to see if we can get any clue as to where they're being held," Billy explained smoothly. "We're all just eager to get Francine and Amanda back any way we can."

Efraim realized what the headshake had meant: _Don't let him know you have a personal interest_.

Dirk grunted in response to Billy's explanation. "Well, if you can figure that out and get them back without any loss of resources, I'm sure that would relieve the powers that be, but an official trade is definitely a no-go." He paused and glared at Billy. "Scarecrow is still unaware of all this, I assume? We don't want him swooping in here all hot-headed and going off half-cocked as usual."

"No, Sir," replied Billy. "Lee Stetson is in Bermuda on vacation and has no idea about any of this." He glanced at Efraim and met a stony expression that told him nothing.

"Good, keep it that way until this is all sorted," Fredericks wagged a threatening finger at Billy. "Rostov is already on his way to the Federal Corrections Institution in the Midwest so even if I wanted to make the trade, I couldn't. No point in getting too emotional about this. We lose good agents all the time – this is just the sacrifice required of all of us."

"And how is this a sacrifice for you?" asked Efraim bitterly before he could stop himself.

Fredericks spun on his heel and eyed him through narrow eyes. "Beaman, was it? Well, Beaman, when you are as senior as I am someday – if you last that long – perhaps then you'll understand the burden of being the general who has to send good people into battle, knowing they might not come back."

"With all due respect, _Sir_ , neither of these women were sent into battle – they have been taken as prisoners of war without a shot fired. As a civilian, Mrs. King especially should expect the backing of her government in attempting to free her!"

"Well…" Fredericks didn't appear to have an immediate answer to that. "Despite Mrs. King's unfortunate habit of ending up in places she shouldn't – like Stetson's apartment - I'm sure the higher-ups would have no problem with you trying to convince the Russkies to let her go at least. As a goodwill gesture on their part, you know."

"You know they won't do that!" Efraim exploded. "You know perfectly well they think-"

His tirade was interrupted by Billy's curt "Beaman!"

He turned to glare at his boss who motioned him to step back and he did so, unwillingly.

"We'll see what we can do, Dirk," said Billy in a diplomatic tone once he was sure Efraim wasn't about to interrupt again. "We wouldn't want to _sacrifice_ any more than we absolutely have to, would we?" he added in an acid tone that had Dirk raising an eyebrow.

"No, we wouldn't," Fredericks agreed, turning to give Efraim one last angry look before stalking from Billy's office.

The two men watched his departure silently, Efraim waiting until he was safely past the armed guards to turn on Billy. "You cannot be serious! We are not leaving them there!"

"Efraim, my hands are tied! You just saw me receive a direct order to do nothing outside of a bit of glad-handing!"

"Mr. Beaman?" A voice from the doorway interrupted them before Efraim could completely lose it. "There's a call for you on Line 3. I thought maybe you'd want to take it in here?" The young secretary realized too late that she'd walked into the middle of an argument and looked worriedly between the two men.

Billy pursed his lips and gestured for Efraim to pick up the call.

"Beaman," he barked into the receiver, then looked Billy straight in the eye. "Oh hi, Lee. Thanks for calling back."

Billy's eyes widened and there was a long look between them before Efraim finally said, "Um yeah. No, nothing too serious here, I was just calling to get some advice. Look, I can't really talk right now – can I call you back in a few minutes?... Yeah, I'm in with Billy – just give me ten minutes to get back to my desk… Thanks."

He hung up and the two men measured each other up.

"You can't tell him," repeated Billy, regretfully. "You heard the orders, same as I did."

"I did," Efraim said bitterly. "But some orders…"

"Are harder to follow than others." Billy sighed. "Efraim, I know this one's not easy, but it's the nature of our business - we're not supposed to take these things personally…" His voice drifted off as he met Efraim's furious expression.

"Politics over people, Billy? Really?"

"It's more than politics and you know it, Beaman! Capturing Rostov has thrown a wrench into Soviet interference in this country for years to come! Handing him back would negate three years of Lee's work and put hundreds of embedded agents in danger."

"I wouldn't tell Lee you're using him as an excuse in this one," Efraim remarked. "You'll be down more than three people if he finds that part out."

"Three?" asked Billy.

"I'm staying until every avenue has been tried," replied Efraim. "But the second anything happens to either Francine or Amanda, you'll have my resignation letter." He turned and walked to the door. "But for now, Lee's sitting in Bermuda wondering why the hell I called him."

* * *

Efraim was exactly right – Lee was waiting with unconcealed impatience to find out why his week of wine, women and sand was being interrupted.

It had been slightly more than ten minutes before Efraim had called him – ten minutes spent making his way to the payphone at the coffee shop down the street and loading his entire pocketful of change into it to make an international call. As he waited for the hotel desk to put him through to Lee's room, he looked around the shop recalling the first time he'd properly met Amanda – flat on his back after being taken out by a lucky punch from a crazed Walt Kimball. She'd been the calm in the storm that day and all the days after during those bizarre events at the hospital with Glaser. It was inconceivable that the Agency could contemplate leaving her to suffer the whims of international espionage after everything she'd done with no thought for herself, let alone Francine who appeared to be disposable simply because she was female.

"Y'ello?" Lee sounded just a little drunk when he finally picked up, and Efraim groaned silently that he wasn't getting Scarecrow at his sharpest. He took a deep breath and plunged in.

"Hiya Buddy. Look, I'm sorry to drag you away from the pool but I was wondering if you could help me out, maybe give me a name of someone in your family that could give me a hand with something?"

"Probably," said Lee cheerfully. "What kind of something?"

"My dogs are missing."

"What do you mean, your dog is missing? You don't have a dog." Lee was laughing a bit now. "Are you drunk? Because I'm the one on vacation and I'm the one who shouldn't be making sense. Now, why did you really call?"

"My dog. You know the one. I've had her for about six months. You were with me when I picked her up at the Mall."

There was a long silence, then Lee asked carefully, "Do you mean that tiny Italian greyhound of yours? Looks really sweet right up until she bites you?"

Efraim heaved a sigh of relief that Lee was on the right track. "Yeah, that one."

"Did she run away?"

"Nope."

"Was she stolen?"

"Yep."

"By who?"

"Oh, the usual guys. The problem is that I'm being told there's nothing I can do to get them back. It seems like they stole her to order and have a buyer who's interested."

"That's a big problem, I can see why you're looking for help… Wait a second, did you say dogs?"

"Yep."

" _Both_ your dogs? The _whole_ K-9 squad?"

"Yep."

"How did they get both of them?"

He could hear Lee's voice rising as he truly began to process what Efraim was telling him.

"Long story – they were after a different hound dog and got mine. Anyway I'm sorry I bothered you with it. People told me I shouldn't bother you on vacation…"

"They did huh? Well they were wrong, I'd be more than happy to set you up with some help. In fact, I'll put something on the afternoon flight out of here. Can you pick it up at the airport around six?"

"Absolutely. See you then."

Efraim hung up and turned away from the phone, catching sight for the first time of Fred Fielder who was looking away guiltily, trying to look like he hadn't been eavesdropping on the call. He kept looking at him, until Fred finally turned to look at him with a small shrug.

"Nothing personal, Beaman," he said as if that explained everything.

"So I've been told, Fred, so I've been told."


	6. Dungeons and Dragons

Amanda couldn't hide her relief when Francine was pushed back into the room, still yelling at the two men who'd manhandled her out in the first place.

"Oh my gosh, are you alright? Where did they take you? Did they hurt you?" Amanda had run her hands up and down Francine's arms, trying to check her for injury. She'd really wanted to hug her from relief, but she could tell that in Francine's current mood, it might just antagonize her more.

"I'm fine! I'm fine!" Francine snapped, pushing her away.

"Where did they take you?" ventured Amanda. "You were gone a long time. Or maybe you weren't, maybe it just felt that way…"

Francine took in a deep breath and tried to tamp down her irritation, knowing that she needed to keep Amanda calm. "We just went for a little ride, that's all."

"A little ride where?" Amanda's eye had gone wide.

"They were trying to trade me back," Francine confessed. "But just for some stupid airplane plans, not anything important."

"But why…?" Amanda stopped abruptly and Francine winced inwardly as she saw her figure it out on her own. "You were the dry run? To see if the Agency would do a trade for Scarecrow?" Her voice started to rise in panic. "Because they think I'm Lee? For real?"

Francine nodded – at this point there was no point lying to her.

"Then why are you back? Why aren't you traded?" asked Amanda with suspicion. "Didn't the Agency agree to it? You said they'd trade us back!" she accused her.

"Oh no, they showed up – I just refused to go," Francine admitted.

"What does that mean, you refused to go?"

Francine shrugged. "When I realized what they were doing and that they thought you were the big fish and they hadn't brought you too, I just… refused to go." She held up a hand and stared at it in annoyance. "I chipped a nail punching the one with the mustache and it was almost worth it."

Amanda bit back a slightly hysterical laugh. "Well, thank you, I think… But now what? Do they think you're Scarecrow? Or are they just going to ship us both off in a box?"

"I'm not sure – I think I confused them by saying I wasn't going anywhere without my girlfriend," admitted Francine, allowing herself a quick smile at the slack-jawed reaction she'd gotten from that. "But at least Billy knows for sure that they have us, and he's probably put two and two together that they're confused about who's who."

"Billy was there?" asked Amanda with relief.

"Yes, and Efraim," replied Francine, turning to pace around the room so that Amanda wouldn't see how much it bothered her to have seen that look of relief and then despair on his face when he'd realized she wasn't cooperating with the trade.

"But not Lee?" asked Amanda in a small voice.

"Oh I'm sure they've got him in handcuffs somewhere keeping him from charging over here to trade places with us," said Francine. "If they've even told him," she added after thinking it over. "Having him safely out of the way and not running around like a bull in a china shop is probably a good thing."

"Is it?"

Francine came back toward Amanda, pushing her to sit back at the table and sitting down as well. "Now, now, Amanda – Lee's not the only white knight capable of getting us out of here. You watch, any minute now, Fred Fielder is going to trip and fall down those stairs and bust this place wide open."

Amanda did finally laugh at that. "Poor Fred. Is he really that klutzy?"

"Not at all," said Francine, glad to have distracted her, even momentarily. "He just wiped out spectacularly on a wet floor in the hallway once and he got stuck with a klutz reputation. The security cameras caught the whole thing and Leatherneck played it at the Christmas party – I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life."

"I bet." Amanda sighed and started picking at her cuticles which were already red and raw from her time alone. "So now we wait?"

Francine reached over and took her hand before she could do any more damage. "We'll be fine."

* * *

Lee came striding out of National Airport, fury etched on his face, and threw his bag into the backseat. He slid into the passenger seat and immediately turned to Efraim. "Okay, what the hell happened and why wasn't I told?"

"Buckle up, Stetson," said Efraim calmly, hiding how relieved he was to see him.

"It's that bad?" asked Lee, taken aback.

"No, I mean buckle up – it's the law," Efraim said seriously.

"You sound just like Amanda," grumbled Lee, but did as he was told. "Now tell me."

As they drove back across the 14th Street Bridge on the way to Lee's apartment, Efraim filled him in on the situation, culminating with the refusal of the Intelligence Oversight Committee to consider the trade.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Lee exploded. "They thought it was okay to leave a civilian in the hands of someone like Zinoviev?"

"As far as they're concerned, we got our chance at it and that's that. After the first attempt didn't go so well, they decided that was enough effort to expend on two women of no crucial importance." He glanced sideways at the expletive Lee let loose. "The Committee's words, not mine."

"The first attempt? And what do you mean 'not so well'?"

"Well, as far as we can tell, they can't figure out which one is Scarecrow and which one isn't - I know, I know, they're idiots - anyway, Billy asked them to release Amanda in exchange for some fighter plans but when they showed up at the meet, it was Francine they dragged out of the car and she took one look at us, kicked one of them in the crotch and climbed back in the van."

"You're kidding!"

"Nope - we sat there and watched them try and get her back out of the van and they finally just gave up. And now the Committee seems to think she was too interested in staying with our Eastern friends."

"So because she wouldn't leave Amanda there alone," seethed Lee. "They think she's a traitor?"

"Maybe not, but they feel she blew an opportunity to escape for no obvious reason. Anyway, Fredericks told us to back off and take advantage of the Russians tying themselves up in knots trying to get information out of the Scarecrow they think they have."

Lee slammed his fist against his knee. "They should have me, damn it! How did they even pick up Amanda anyway? Since when do the Soviets start trawling in suburban Arlington? She hasn't been seen with me enough for them to pay attention to her, surely?"

Efraim took a deep breath and give him a quick look. "Well, the thing is…they didn't get her in Arlington. As near as we can figure, they picked her up out of your apartment. And Francine was there because she was dropping off your car keys."

Lee stared at him uncomprehendingly. "My apartment? What the…? Oh my God," he finished dropping his head into his hands. "The fish. She was there to feed the damn fish."

"Was she?" asked Efraim in a carefully neutral tone, but not neutral enough that it didn't have Lee lifting his head back up to look at him with suspicion. "I mean, I'm sure she way... it was just that it looked…"

"It looked what?" asked Lee, the exasperation in his voice evident.

"Domestic?" Efraim tried out the word as they pulled up in front of Lee's building.

"Domestic?" Lee repeated, puzzled.

He stayed puzzled until they got upstairs and he saw what they meant as he spun carefully in place. The rack full of carefully cleaned dishes that hadn't been put away yet. The cake sitting on the rack on the counter. The stack of invitations for Jamie's party half completed on the desk, and worst of all, the pile of laundry on the sofa with – for no discernible reason – a bra sitting on top. Lee stared at it fixedly for a moment before finally remembering that girl three weeks ago who had overslept and raced out of his apartment, late for work and unable to find it after their encounter the night before.

He looked up to find Efraim watching him steadily. "It's not what it looks like," he said. He gestured at the cake. "I think that's for Jamie's birthday party and that…isn't hers," he finished lamely.

Efraim shrugged. "Well, that's why they didn't let us call you."

"Because she was in my apartment?"

"Because they thought if you were involved, you'd do something crazy to get her back."

Lee glowered at him. "We're not involved! We're just…" he couldn't come up with a word adequate to describe it. Amanda wasn't his partner or his girlfriend or 'just a friend' – she was just… Amanda – and she was in trouble because of him. He realized he'd fallen silent for too long and looked up at Efraim. "But they're right – if burning down Washington until we find them is crazy, count me in."

Efraim grinned back at him. "Good. I'd hate to be crazy all by myself."


	7. Super Mario Brothers

Billy was sitting in his office, glowering at Fred Fielder. "You're sure he never said anything about Amanda or Francine? Or Rostov?"

Fred shook his head. _It was true – Beaman never mentioned their names or the Agency at all._

"And yet somehow Lee Stetson was seen arriving at National Airport not even half an hour ago? For absolutely no reason, he left Bermuda to come back here without anyone telling him anything about what was going on?"

"Mr. Melrose, I've been following Beaman since he left your office and the only time he could have told him was that phone call he made from the coffee shop and he never said a word about it."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely Sir! All he did was ask Stetson for some advice about his dog." Fred stared into the space right over Billy's head. He was pretty sure from Beaman's end of the conversation that there'd been some kind of code at work there but everyone in the Agency knew what was going on now - and if Beaman and Stetson had a plan to get the girls back, he could be Sergeant Schultz with the best of them.

Billy leaned back in his chair and stared wordlessly at Fielder. "His dog?" he said finally. "That's it?"

"Yes Sir."

"And then what?"

"Then he came back to the office and worked until he left to collect Scarecrow at National."

"Did he make any other calls?"

"No, Sir. Just worked at his desk for a few hours and left."

"Did he take anything with him? Files? Equipment?"

"No, Sir." Fred refrained from reminding Billy that Efraim could probably have memorized everything he needed to know in those hours.

"Good. Make a report to that effect and leave it on my desk before you go."

Fred sidled out of Billy's office as fast as he could, leaving his boss staring thoughtfully at the ceiling.

Billy didn't move for several minutes while he thought over what Fred had reported to him and considered that gut feeling he had that he'd just been lied to. Not directly, perhaps, but he was no fool – he knew what the mood in the bullpen was like right now and even if he sympathized with them completely, he still had to be the boss. Sighing he picked up the phone.

"Jeanie, it's me. I won't be home tonight. No, no, nothing in the field – I just have to keep an eye on something. Goodnight, Honey – I love you too."

He hung up with a sigh and pulled some paperwork forward. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

At Lee's apartment, Efraim was busy writing out everything he'd memorized from Rostov's and Zinoviev's files while Lee called his 'family' and scrawled notes as he sat at the desk. He finished his last call and reached for the city map he kept in the last cubbyhole to look at the area Rhonda had suggested based on the rumors she'd heard – and knocked over the pile of small papers that were sitting on the corner of the desk. He leaned down to pick them up as the last one fluttered to the floor and stared at them. It took him a moment to figure out what they were – all the scraps of paper and cocktail napkins with phone numbers that he'd collected during the past few weeks. It took him another moment to realize that Amanda must have made the pile since he didn't save them – he usually just emptied his pockets into the trash and sent everything to the dry cleaners. He stared at the papers in his hand, then over at the pile of laundry that they'd shoved to one side of the sofa, bra now half hidden in the toppled stack. He couldn't picture even one face to go with the numbers but he could clearly imagine Amanda gleefully collecting up all the evidence to tease him with later, biting her lip to try and look prim but eyes dancing…

"How does she do it?" he asked out loud. Efraim looked up from his notes questioningly. "How does she keep ending up in these situations that are my fault even when I'm not here? And how am I going to explain it to her family if we can't get her back? At least Francine's family has some vague idea, but Dotty and the boys think she works for a film company."

"First off, it's not your fault," answered Efraim. "And secondly, we're going to get them both back. We just need to figure out how to make them think we have something they want to keep them on our string."

"Well, we could trade them for me," offered Lee. "Since they seem so keen on the idea."

"Except they think they already have you," Efraim reminded him.

"They might just as well have me, if they had any inkling of how much information Francine has stuck in her head. Do they seriously not know who she is?"

"Apparently not, which is probably really pissing her off," Efraim smiled for the first time in hours. "But it does mean we have an ace in the hole if we could just find them."

"Well, we need to do it before they figure out that all they have is a nice woman who should just be making a birthday cake and trying to figure out how to get a bunch of small boys organized to see some damn computer movie next weekend!" Lee picked up the half-finished invitations to Jamie's party and slapped them against the edge of the desk.

"We'll have them before it comes to that," soothed Efraim. "You've got the security program brawn and I've got the Master Computer brain right up here." He tapped his head as Lee looked at him in complete confusion. "The computer movie? We fight for the users? Really, you never saw it?" He leaned back and framed Lee between his thumb and fingers. "That's pretty funny because give you a bad haircut and a pair of my glasses and you'd look just like the guy…" His expression froze and then he was scrambling to find the small photo of Rostov that he'd smuggled out of the Agency in his pocket. "Oh my God, that's it! We give them Rostov!"

"But we don't have Rostov," Lee reminded him.

"No, but with a bit of plastic surgery we could," replied Efraim, walking over to hold the photo up beside Lee's face and study it. "Did you mean it when you said you'd trade places with them?"

"Of course I did!" Lee realized where he was going with it and took the picture from him and studied it. "Can you do it? Convincingly, I mean?" he asked, doubtfully. "I mean, even with a good make-up job, I'm about four inches taller than Rostov."

"Our files suggest Zinoviev is just the puppet master; he prefers to pull strings from a distance and doesn't actually meet any of the agents in person, so it could work for long enough to get her out of there." Efraim sunk into thought before looking up with a grin. "Remember that scar job Francine did on Amanda to get us out of hot water? Who do you think taught her? And I have everything I need back at my place to do that to you – they'll be so distracted by your supposed interrogation injuries that they won't look too closely."

"What about speaking? I can speak Russian but they'll pick up on the accent." Lee was getting convinced despite himself.

"We fake up some bruises on your neck, make it look like someone tried to strangle you – you whisper a lot as if it hurts. Like I said, we just need them to believe it long enough for you to get them out of there."

"So if we trade me for them, how do I get out of there?" asked Lee. "Zinoviev will probably try to have his best boy on a flight back to Moscow"

"Well, we'll figure that part out while I turn you into Rostov. Come on, let's go!" Efraim urged him. "Got anything with blood on it so you look like you've been beaten up?"

Lee rolled his eyes. "Are you kidding? My dry cleaner thinks I get chronic nosebleeds because I'm always bringing in shirts like that and I can't explain it any other way."

"Good. Grab 'em and let's go build Rostov on my slab."


	8. Let's Make a Deal

The first inkling Billy got that there might be even more going on than he was aware of, came when the he answered the phone and was greeted by the voice of Blue Leader – a voice that suggested his mysterious boss was barely controlling his temper.

"Melrose, would you care to explain to me how a senior agent and a civilian employee of the Agency ended up in the hands of Nicholas Zinoviev?"

Billy found himself standing up, unconsciously bracing himself against the anger in that voice. "I assumed you had been briefed, Sir. I can't imagine how that slipped through the cracks, Sir."

"And what is being done to liberate them?" asked Blue Leader.

"What is…? Well, nothing, Sir," said Billy, now confused, "Our orders were to not make any trade."

"Your orders? Your orders from whom?"

"Dirk Fredericks told us that that the Committee had decided…" Billy began to answer before he was interrupted again.

"Dirk Fredericks, I should have known – that little ass-kissing toe rag! What the hell was he thinking?"

Billy had never heard Blue Leader raise his voice like this, and stared at the phone, bewildered.

"Wasn't he thinking what the committee told him to think?"

"No, he damn well wasn't! He's deliberately misled them about the situation and I'm going to find him a special circle of hell when this is all done. But in the meantime – how fast can we get Scarecrow back in the country? I want him on this."

"Well, Sir," Billy hedged, "I have reason to believe he may already be back." There was a short sharp laugh from Blue Leader. "Good for him. What kind of help does he need? I'll clear it with the committee if that's what you're worried about."

"I don't know what he needs," Billy confessed. "I haven't seen him – but I'm certain the agent that alerted him is helping him."

"That would be Beaman, right? The one with the memory thing?"

Billy didn't even wonder how Blue Leader would know that – he'd learned not to question these things. "Yes, Sir."

"And no one else?"

"Not that I know of officially, but I have my suspicions about why one of the men in the motor pool might have been loading up a truck full of equipment this evening." Billy thought back to the way Fred had so studiously avoided meeting his gaze earlier. "I couldn't officially condone anything in face of the committee's decision, but I've been trying to keep an eye on it from here in case I needed to run interference."

"Good – here's your new orders then - get yourself a posse and go find them."

"Yes, Sir! Thank you, Sir!"

* * *

The park chosen for the trade was lit only by moonlight and satisfactorily deserted. Lee and Efraim were already waiting out of sight when the blue van pulled up and turned down the road. Behind the blazing headlights, they could still see Zinoviev's men struggling to pull Amanda out the side door. Her hands were tied, but her feet weren't since they expected her to walk over and she was taking full advantage, flailing and kicking out at them as they dodged her. Finally, one of them pulled back a fist and slammed it into the side of her head, letting her drop where she stood.

"Son of a -!" snarled Lee, almost starting forward to attack them before Efraim grabbed the back of his coat.

"Wait," he muttered. "We need to get her back first."

Lee made a growling noise in the back of his throat but stopped moving, dropping back into the posture of captive agent. "Where's Francine?" he muttered back.

"I don't know – and I don't like not knowing," Efraim answered, peering. "Where is the other woman?" he called out in the darkness.

"We only brought this one," came the reply.

"That wasn't the deal!" Efraim yelled back angrily.

"Scarecrow for Rostov. You get the civilian when we get safely out of American territory!"

Lee and Efraim exchanged a quick look. "I can get Francine out of there but we need to get Amanda out of here first."

Efraim looked doubtful but then one of the captors called out "Take it or we leave now!"

"Okay," he agreed quietly. "But you get that tracking device working as soon as you can so we can follow you."

"You get Amanda to some medical help first," Lee ordered. "We'll be fine for a little while."

"We accept your deal!" Efraim yelled across the open space. He pretended to nudge Lee forward and they began to pace slowly toward the van. One of the men picked up Amanda in a fireman's lift and carried her toward them, dumping her on the ground at the halfway point. Lee growled under his breath but kept moving until he reached her, relieved to hear the faint groans of pain that said she was regaining consciousness. The goon reached into his pocket and pulled out a photo which he quickly compared to Lee's face, his confusion showing as he tried to match the bloodied bruised face Efraim had created to whatever he had in his hand. He could hear the faint grunt of relief from Efraim beside him – they were right, these guys didn't know Rostov on sight.

Finally the goon grunted in agreement and stepped back and Efraim made a show of pretending to take the handcuffs off Lee so that he could walk away.

It took everything Lee had not to turn and watch as Efraim crouched down to check on Amanda as they walked away, especially when he heard him swear quietly, but he knew this was their only hope to get Francine back as well and he kept moving toward the van.

When he arrived, the other goon quickly swept him with a bug machine, and Lee silently thanked Leatherneck for having come up with a tracker with an on-off switch. Finding nothing, they let him clamber into the passenger seat, and peeled out of there.

Behind him in the park, Efraim knelt on the grass, holding a brown wig in one hand and gently trying to rouse a half-conscious Francine with the other. "Come on now, _Neshama_ , wake up…"

"Efraim?' When her eyes finally fluttered open, it took only a few seconds of staring up at him, mirroring his expression of relief before her gaze sharpened and she was struggling to sit up. "Oh no, no, no," she said angrily. "You did not just give them Rostov and leave Amanda in there!"

"Well, you're half right," he answered, grabbing her shoulders to keep her from standing up too quickly. "We didn't give them Rostov." he turned and watched the tail lights of the van disappear into the darkness. "And this all just got a little more complicated."


	9. Risk

" _Welcome, welcome_!" Zinoviev greeted Lee cheerfully in Russian as he limped into the house, playing up his apparent injuries. " _Oh my poor boy! What did those Americans do to you_?"

" _Apparently they were angry that you had taken one of their agents and let me know it during my interrogation_ ," answered Lee, faking the raspy voice to match the strangulation bruises Efraim had skillfully decorated him with. " _I gave them nothing_ ," he went on, " _But I look forward to getting my revenge on Scarecrow and his little friends one day._ "

" _Well, then you will be delighted to meet our guest downstairs_ ," smiled Zinoviev, leading him to the cellar steps. " _I can see from looking at you that the Americans are brutes, but I am surprised how stupid they are_." He stopped outside a door and gestured for the guards to unlock it.

Lee had to bite back a grin when the guards were actually nervous about opening the door, fumbling with the lock and then pushing the door open and leaping back, guns pointed at it in self defense.

"Go stand along the back wall!" one of them shouted the order into the apparently empty room, and after a beat, there was the sound of a chair being put back down on the ground. He glanced at the guards for a second, and noticed for the first time the cuts and bruises that left him wondering just how many times these guys had been attacked by Francine before they figured out that they needed to be more careful. He knew he couldn't laugh or they'd be on to him - and then all desire to laugh fled as Amanda appeared from behind the door and went to do as she'd been told.

" _What is this_?" he tried to mask his shock but wasn't sure he was very successful.

Zinoviev turned to beam at him. " _Amazing is it not? We kept Scarecrow and got you back and those stupid Americans never thought twice. A simple matter of a dark wig, and hey presto!"_

Amanda had been looking back and forth between them, not understanding the words but reading their moods. "I'm not Scarecrow!" she burst out, seizing on the one word she understood and now obviously in full panic mode. "I keep telling you! I am just a mother of two small boys and I was feeding my friend's fish. I shouldn't even have been there that long but my oven is broken and it's my younger son's birthday next week, that's Jamie, he's only eight, well, seven, really because he won't be eight until next week of course, but I needed somewhere to bake his cake and I thought, well my friend is away, he won't mind if I use his oven so I went over because I had the keys, you know so that I could feed the fish, and that's why I was in the apartment at all…"

"Enough!" thundered Zinoviev, and waited until Amanda had lapsed into silence. He turned to Lee and continued, now in English. "I can see why she is such a highly regarded agent – she has been telling this same story for several hours now without ever varying a detail. I could almost believe it was true, but it is the most marvellous cover story."

"This is not Scarecrow," Lee ground out.

Amanda jumped a little at the unexpected confirmation of her story and turned to stare carefully at him.

Zinoviev had turned pale. "This isn't Scarecrow?" he repeated. "You're sure?"

"You think I wouldn't know the agent who captured me?" answered Lee, lifting a brow as if in disgust. "You have kept the wrong one. I have never seen this woman before."

"No," whispered Zinoviev, all his good mood gone.

"Yes," said Lee, rubbing it in. "But you say she was in Scarecrow's apartment? That is… interesting." He gave Amanda a quick glance where she had retreated to a far wall and was watching them, the way she was bouncing slightly on her toes the only sign of how nervous she was. "Perhaps I will get some revenge on Scarecrow after all since she is obviously a friend to him."

Amanda gave a gasp, but when he locked eyes with hers, she met his gaze bravely. It was more than a little disconcerting to have her look at him with not even a flicker of recognition, but then again, now he knew Efraim had done a great job.

"Give me a few minutes alone with her," ordered Lee. "She and I have much to … discuss." He paused as if he was thinking. "And give me a gun in case she needs persuading."

The guards looked at Zinoviev who nodded and then one of them handed Lee his weapon. Lee calculated briefly whether he could take them all out before tossing the idea – not with Amanda in the room, he decided.

Zinoviev had turned back to look at Amanda. "So you were just the little sparrow you claimed to be all along," he said ruefully. "And Scarecrow left you behind like so much rubbish."

"It will not have been willingly," said Lee. "You can expect an army to return looking for this one if everything I've heard about Scarecrow is true."

"What will you do with her?" asked Zinoviev, with a disappointed shake of his head.

"Exactly what I said," growled Lee. "We shall have a little talk and then we will return her, just a little the worse for wear like they have done to me." Amanda's eyes shifted to the open door behind them; he could see her calculating whether she could make it – but that was the last thing he needed her to do.

"Leave us," he repeated to Zinoviev, moving to get between Amanda and the door and watching her slump in despair.

"As you wish," said the Russian, walking toward the door. He stopped in the doorway with one last look at Amanda. "Such a waste," he said. "You were so… entertaining. I was looking forward to seeing what you would come up with next." He walked out, pulling the door closed behind him.

Lee stood silently for a moment, listening to the footsteps walking away down the hall, then moved to softly open the door again and check that the hallway was in fact deserted. He turned back to find Amanda studying him carefully.

"Lee?" she whispered in a hopeful tone but not sounding entirely certain.

His face broke into a broad grin. "Hey Kid, long time no see."

She launched herself across the room at him, throwing her arms around his neck. "Oh Lee, it is you!" she squeaked. "Oh my gosh, you came! You really came!"

"Did you think I wouldn't?" he asked, tightening his arms around her when he realized how hard she was shaking as she clung to him, choking back her sobs of relief. "I'm so sorry. I can't believe you had to go through this." He lifted his head and pretended to glare at her. "Didn't I tell you to stay out of trouble?"

She gave another shudder and reached to embrace him again, the tightness in her voice making it clear how close she was to tears. "I thought maybe you couldn't. Francine said you weren't there the first time they tried to trade – she figured they either had you locked up somewhere or they hadn't told you at all." She took a step away, enough to study him carefully, trying to see past the disguise but staying close enough to have one hand on his forearm as if she was afraid he might disappear. The color drained from her face as she remembered everything else that had happened. "Oh Lee, they took Francine away a little while ago and I don't know where but one of them said they were going to finally be rid of her and they think I'm you and they're going to take me to Russia! Lee, I can't go to Russia – what would happen to the boys and Mother? And I've been gone since this morning and I was only supposed to be gone a few hours and-"

Lee grabbed her hands and held them between his until she stopped talking. "Amanda, take it easy - it's all going to be fine. They traded Francine for me so she's safe. And Efraim says Billy had someone disconnect the phone line at your house so your mother would think you were just having trouble getting through and we'll have time to think up a reason for why you were late once we get you out of here, okay?"

"How _are_ we going to get out of here?" she asked, voice still shaky. "And who are you supposed to be anyway? You scared the living daylights out of me coming in with all this on. Are those blue contact lenses? It's just creepy hearing your voice coming out of a different face."

"I'm a fairly decent imitation of Rostov as long as I'm in poor light and they think I've been beaten during interrogation," explained Lee. "That's why they fell for the trade."

Amanda lifted a hand and ran a finger along the rubber make-up. "That's definitely Efraim's handiwork – your own mother wouldn't recognize you." She bit her lip as she realized what she said.

"Well that was the idea," Lee answered, lightly. "So how did you?"

Amanda beamed up at him. "Well I didn't at first, of course, but then you started doing that thing with your hand, you know the thing you do when you're frazzled?" She held up her hand and rubbed her thumb and middle finger together.

"Frazzled? Yeah, that just about sums me up right now." He lifted his hand to rub the back of his neck, wincing when he hit the seam of the hairpiece and felt it move. "I thought they'd have decided by now that Francine was me and that you'd already be safely out of this. I should have figured it out when she fought so hard not to get traded."

"Oh no – that man upstairs was so certain I was lying about who I was – are all Russians like that? They think everything is a trick?"

Lee laughed a little at that. "Yeah – they're all so busy double-crossing each other, they sometimes miss the obvious things right under their noses." He pointed to his tie pin. "Like this, for instance. It's a homing device and after I activated it, Leatherneck and Beaman will have been following it."

"Just them?" asked Amanda. "Not anyone else?"

Lee gave her an apologetic look. "Francine wasn't wrong when she thought the Agency hadn't told me about this. Efraim called me and we had to set up our own little scam to get you out of here because Billy's under orders from higher up not to make any trades. We cooked this up together – with a little help from some people who don't like Dirk Fredericks either."

He reached into his pockets and began pulling an odd assortment of things "Okay, let's see what we can use to get us both out of here without making Zinoviev suspicious." He poked at a small bag of pills. "I assume you don't know how to fake being dead from an Agency-issue cyanide pill so we'll have to go with plan B." he studied the collection for a moment, then picked up a few oddly shaped plastic packets. "Well, since they were kind enough to supply me with a gun, let's go with a big show – if we dazzle them enough, they'll be too distracted to really pay attention." He held his hand out to Amanda. "These are called squibs and I need you to stick a couple on your chest and then I'll stick some on your back."

"Under my shirt?" asked Amanda worriedly.

"Don't you mean under _my_ shirt?" teased Lee. "I want to hear that story when we get out of here."

Amanda looked down at the loose t-shirt she still had on and gave a kind of sobbing laugh. "It's a good one - and it's all your fault."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" he replied, grimacing. "That's getting to be my thing."

Seeing the look on his face, Amanda seized on the distraction of getting him back to the plan. "So what will these do?" she asked, taking two of the unfamiliar packets out of his hand.

"Well, they're going to explode and cover you in blood – right after I shoot you."

"Whaaaaat?"


	10. Bells and Whistles

Zinoviev and his goons came running at the sound of gunshots and found Lee standing over Amanda's blood-spattered form, literally holding a smoking gun.

" _You imbecile! What have you done?_ " hissed Zinoviev, back in Russian now. " _I just promised her to Arcady for his own negotiations_."

" _I have made certain Scarecrow's life will never be the same_ ," sneered Lee, " _And I have my revenge. What do I care about Popov and his stupid arms deals?_ "

Zinoviev averted his eyes from the pool of blood that was seeping out from under Amanda. " _And now what?"_ he asked in a voice that barely concealed his nausea.

" _Now I shall go dump the body where it will cause the Agency the most possible public embarrassment,_ " answered Lee, bending down and pulling Amanda off the floor and draping her across his shoulder, coughing to hide his laugh when Amanda couldn't resist slapping his butt lightly as she dangled down his back. " _Perhaps on the steps of the Washington Post with a nice note_. _The Agency will be destroyed when the press finds out their government is willing to abandon its citizens."_ He turned to the door and began to walk out with her. " _I suggest you leave town while you still can. I will make my own arrangements through my network, once I pay back a few debts to those who betrayed me_."

It was almost surreal the way Zinoviev never questioned any of it, so horrified by being this close to actual violence for once in his life that he simply followed Lee upstairs and out the back door to where the blue van was still parked. He even opened the van's back doors helpfully and watched as Lee rolled Amanda off his shoulder and into the back of the van before stepping back and starting to close the doors.

" _You are even more cold-blooded than I realized_ ," he remarked, shaking his head. " _I have underestimated you, Rostov_."

" _I am often underestimated_ ," agreed Lee with a dark chuckle. " _It is what has made me so successful up until now."_ He walked to the front of the van, turning to Zinoviev with a grim smile. " _We part here. Thank you for getting me away from the Americans. I will make sure you are recommended for a proper reward."_

" _Thank you,_ " replied Zinoviev with a small bow of the head. " _It was my duty, and my pleasure_."

Just at that moment, the night came alive as what appeared to be a hundred agents suddenly came charging from every direction. Before Lee knew what was happening, he'd been thrown to the ground and someone was kneeling on his back, handcuffing him. "What the hell are you doing?" he yelled, struggling to get away.

"Shut it, Comrade," the agent sitting on him snarled. "Or you'll get a taste for real American justice. You should have thought twice before you did that to Mrs. King."

Lee turned his head to respond to that just in time to see Zinoviev make a break for it. "Stop him!" he yelled. Of course none of the agents listened to him, but as usual, they didn't need to. Lee watched appreciatively as Amanda who was scrambling out of the van took in the situation in an instant and simply stuck her foot out to trip him as he went by. Zinoviev went flying, landing face first and skidding along the gravel before two agents leapt forward to pin him.

"That'll teach you not to underestimate little sparrows," she scolded him. She turned to look for Lee, her eyes widening with shock as she saw him pinned as well.

"Oh no! Don't do that!" she cried out, running toward him and trying to pull off the agent who was restraining him. "That's not a bad guy!"

"Stockholm Syndrome," Lee heard one agent mutter to another as she struggled to rescue him. "Poor thing – she's only been gone a few hours and they already got to her."

"I do NOT have Stockholm Syndrome!" said Amanda hotly. "That's Lee Stetson you're sitting on, you dummy!"

"Now, now, Mrs. King, you know Lee Stetson is on vacation in Bermuda," said the man sitting on him in what he no doubt thought was a soothing tone. "Come look, this guy doesn't look anything like him." He reached to grab the back of Lee's head to pull him up for her to look, then leaping to his feet screaming when the hair piece came free in his hand, leaving him holding what he thought was Lee's scalp.

Amanda knelt to help Lee roll over and sit up, then began working at peeling off the prosthetics. "Come on, let's get this stuff off you before someone else thinks you're not you and shoots you or something," she said, sparing a sideways glare for the hapless agent who was looking even more green as she apparently pulled Lee's face off. "And you can just take those handcuffs off him too!" she ordered in a voice that no boy, large or small, would disobey.

"Yes Ma'am," answered the agent, pulling out a key and starting to undo them. "Sorry, Scarecrow," he muttered, sotto voice "I thought she was crazy."

"I heard that," Amanda commented sternly as she continued to take off the make-up. Only Lee saw the small wink she gave him as he began rubbing his wrists to relieve the pain from the cuffs.

"Well, you are a little bit crazy," he grinned at her. He poked a finger at his eye and pulled the blue contacts out so that he could see more clearly.

"And whose fault is that?" she shot back as they both stood up and looked around. "I think I was perfectly normal before I was friends with you."

"Well, I feel like I spent a lot less time flat on the floor before I was friends with you," he countered, making her snort with laughter.

There was some sort of commotion at the foot of the driveway and suddenly Francine was charging toward them, Efraim following at a more leisurely pace with Billy and Leatherneck.

"Are you okay?" she immediately asked Amanda, looking horrified at the apparent bloodstains all over her. "What did they do after they took me away?"

"I'm fine," Amanda answered quickly. "None of this is real. Lee just had to shoot me."

"Of course he did," commented Francine. "Scarecrow always has to show off." The way she absently reached to pat him on the cheek said she didn't mean it and the way he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hugged her into his side said he knew it.

"How did you get the cavalry here so fast?" asked Lee, glancing around at the swarming crowd of agents who were leading more people in handcuffs out of the house.

"We didn't," grinned Efraim. "We were just zeroing in on your location when all this happened." He waved at the mayhem, then turned to look at Billy questioningly. "I thought your hands were tied?"

"Thankfully, we were unleashed by a higher power," Billy chuckled. "So we were all working our CI's and got a tip about where Zinoviev might be hiding out," he began to explain. "That got us close enough that our radios started picking up on your homing beacon since it's Agency issue." He paused and shot a look at an unrepentant Leatherneck before going on. "And we were going to be a lot less noisy than this, but then we saw someone carrying what we thought was Amanda's dead body out of the house and I couldn't rein any of them in after that." He looked around, a small smile tugging at his lips. He whistled as Popov was frogmarched past and looked at Lee. "You certainly hit the mother lode on the Most Wanted list, didn't you? That'll make it easier for me to smooth the ruffled feathers at the way you went about this."

"Wonderful," replied Lee sarcastically. "I wouldn't want to get in trouble with Internal Affairs again."

Billy knew Lee was angry and knew too that he had every reason to be, so decided it was best to let him calm down before they had to discuss his vigilante tactics. "Why don't you take an Agency car and get Amanda home and then you can both come in and debrief in the morning? My office, Scarecrow, 9:00 a.m. sharp."

"Yes, Sir!" Lee snapped a mock salute and clicked his heels together. "Come on, Amanda, let's go before he changes his mind – your mother and the boys are probably frantic with worry and you should have been home hours ago." His hand slipped into its now-customary spot in the small of her back as he began to guide her away.

The pointed look he shot at Billy as he said it didn't bode well for that meeting in the morning, but Billy let it go without response.

"Good night, Amanda," he said gently. "I'm sorry you got caught up in all this."

"Good night, Sir" she answered, stopping in her tracks and shooting a worried glance at the way Lee was glaring. "Are you sure you don't need us to stay?"

"I'm sure," Billy comforted her. "Everything will keep until tomorrow. Now go home to your family; Lee's right, they've been worried."

Amanda bit her lip, still feeling like she should do something to break the mood, worried that she'd been the cause of a fight between the two men, but then Lee's hand pressed into her back again.

"Come on, Kid," he muttered in a gruff tone. "You heard the man, time to go home."

The desire to do that was too overwhelming for Amanda to resist. With one last apologetic look at Billy, she let Lee guide her away.


	11. Mother, May I?

"Amanda! Where have you been? And what is that all over your shirt?"

Just as they'd suspected, Dotty was waiting up for Amanda, napping on the family room sofa since it was now the wee hours of the morning.

"I'm sorry, Mother – I tried to call but there's something wrong with the phone line, I think. I just couldn't get through!"

"Yes, it's been acting up all day, but you know, I don't think the repairman was trying very hard to fix it – I swear he spent most of his day just sitting in his van and when I marched over there to ask him when it was going to be fixed, he just shrug and say they were running tests down the cables or that he was waiting for his supervisor to bring supplies! But that doesn't explain where you've been all day – you left this morning on a simple run to the vet and it's been 17 hours! Seventeen, Amanda! I don't care how hungover that dog was, it had to have sobered up hours ago. And how exactly did a dog get a hangover anyway? And just how much liquor does a Saint Bernard have to drink to get drunk? And why didn't I hear the car pull into the driveway?"

From his vantage point below the kitchen window, Lee listened with a grin as Dotty's relief at seeing Amanda walk in the door came through behind the annoyed ramble. He and Amanda had spent the drive home working on a story her mother might believe and he strained to hear her deliver it.

"Oh no, I'm sure the hangover is long gone, Mother, but you see, while he was still drunk, he was staggering around and fell on something sharp, and that's how I got the blood on me, because the vet we went to first didn't have enough anaesthesia for such a big dog because, well you can imagine how much a dog that size would need to knock him out, even if he was already drunk, so we had to, you know, pick him up and load him back in the wagon and would you believe we had to take him clear up to Gaithersburg to a horse doctor to get stitched up? You would think there'd be a vet somewhere around here that could have done it, wouldn't you but I guess with a dog as big as a horse, you have to go to a horse doctor! And so we had to drive all the way up there and of course, I couldn't just leave my friend there, so I waited with him during the surgery and I did try to call but I guess the phone line wasn't working then and then I took him home and he insisted on keeping the wagon so that he could get it detailed to get the bloodstains out of the back seat and so he drove me home but it was so late that I didn't bring him in to meet you because I didn't think you'd still be up! And I'm so sorry you were worried! Forgive me?"

Lee couldn't resist any longer and snuck a peek, barely able to hold in his laughter at the sight of Dotty's dumbfounded expression at Amanda's rapid-fire explanation that managed to completely derail any questions she might have.

"Well, of course I do, Darling," she finally said, weakly. "I'm just happy you're home. And that the dog is alright too, of course."

"Oh yes, he's fine," said Amanda seriously. "He'll be back lumbering around with his little whiskey barrel in no time."

"Oh good." Dotty blinked, trying to process that image in her head. She walked forward and kissed Amanda on the cheek. "Well, I'm glad you're home safe and sound, but I'm sure I'm going to have a crick in my neck from falling asleep down here," she added as she headed for the stairs. "Good night, Darling."

"I'm sorry about your neck, Mother. I'm sure a good night's sleep will help. I love you."

"Love you too, Darling," said Dotty with a soft smile over her shoulder. "I'll see you in the morning."

Amanda waited until she'd heard her mother's steps fade away down the upstairs hall before turning to the window. "I can't believe she fell for that!"

Lee stood up and stretched, leaning on the window sill, grinning. "Well, like W.C. Fields used to say, if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit."

"Lee!" Amanda dissolved with laughter as she leaned on the island. "It was supposed to just be a tiny white lie!"

"Amanda, if you have to shovel as hard as you just did, it's not so tiny!" Seeing her laughing, safe at home, with her mother and boys upstairs, Lee's heart felt lighter than it had in hours. He knew he was going to have to deal with a whole other barrow full of bull tomorrow, but for now, he was content knowing he'd done the right thing.

"Thank you, Lee." Amanda said quietly, almost as if she could read his mind, and he was beginning to think she could. "I know you're going to be in a bit of trouble with Mr. Melrose, but thank you for not leaving me there."

"That was never going to happen, Kid," he answered, seriously. "No man gets left behind on my watch."

Amanda ducked her head and nodded. "Well, thank you anyway."

"My pleasure. Do you want me to pick you up in the morning since your car is at my place?"

"Oh no! Don't do that – one look at the Porsche and I'd be answering a million other questions. I'll just grab a cab to your neighborhood and pick it up, don't worry."

"Okay." He cast one last look around her cheerful kitchen, knowing he had no one waiting to give him a similar welcome back at the apartment. He realized her warm brown eyes were studying him with a slightly worried expression. "Good night, Kid," he said, forcing a smile. "See you in the morning."

His smile might have been a bit fake but it seemed to relieve her a little. "Yeah, see you then, Butch."

Lee snuck back around the side of the house, heading for his car parked down the block. He would have been a lot less relieved if he had seen Amanda wait for his footsteps to die away down the driveway before walking over to sink down on the sofa, face in her hands and finally give in to the sobs of relief.


	12. Call My Bluff

Billy had been overly optimistic in hoping that Lee would calm down overnight. If anything, he seemed to have gotten angrier since the night before and his belligerence was on full display now as he stood in Billy's office.

"Scarecrow, I'm sorry but your actions bordered on treason and you know it!" Billy could already tell he wasn't getting through to an implacable Lee. "And Beaman knows it too – you're lucky you're not both being hauled up in front of IA – _again_!"

"They were going to just leave them there, Billy. I couldn't live with that." Lee's gaze was hard as he stared back at his boss.

"We had our orders," replied Billy. "We don't always like them but that's the nature of the business, as you well know. The investment on capturing Rostov was too big for some people to just let him go, especially for a civilian auxiliary." He loathed repeating the party line over this, but he needed to make Lee understand the seriousness of what he'd done. He was already enough of a lone wolf without condoning this most recent escapade.

"I think you mean some people just thought Amanda and Francine weren't important enough to bargain for?" Lee shot back. "There had to be a hundred ways to prove to Zinoviev he had an innocent civilian as hostage instead of just abandoning her there." He leaned forward, voice quiet as he tried to control his anger. "A _civilian_ who has been responsible for saving my life half a dozen times and yours too, for that matter!"

"Do you think I don't know that? Or that I was happy about any of this?" Billy retorted. "But contrary to your opinion, I don't get to run this place as my own little private army! But I take my orders from the people who do – and when Dirk Fredericks told me we had orders to back off, I had no choice!"

"I don't really care what Dirk Fredericks thinks, I'd do it again," snarled Lee.

"Well you won't have to worry about what he thinks anymore," answered Billy. "This entire debacle has gotten him a transfer over to the basement of the Department of Agriculture where he'll get to investigate corrupt soybean farmers for the foreseeable future." He paused and studied Lee's furious expression. "There are people higher up who weren't impressed that he wasn't truthful about what was at stake."

"He wasn't truthful?" Lee questioned. "What the hell does that mean?"

"He didn't tell them it was a civilian that had been taken – he let them think it was just a pair of low-level agents." He watched as the muscle began to tic in Lee's jaw and tried to gentle his tone "Lee, you can't think I'm any happier about that than you are! I've known Francine almost as long as I've known you! And Amanda may be new around here, but if last night proved anything, it's that everyone in here thinks she's something special, just like you do." He sighed and leaned back in his chair, gazing up at his most hot-headed agent. "But to go off half-cocked the way you did and without backup…"

"I had Beaman," Lee replied tersely.

"Who is not a field agent, despite all the things you and Francine drag him into," Billy countered. "Look, I understand why you did it, but you know this was inexcusable! I've let you roam without a leash long enough, Scarecrow – you obviously need someone to keep you on the straight and narrow – you've been without a partner for too long."

"No." Lee's voice was icy as he stared down at his boss.

"You're a good agent, Lee – hell, you're my best agent – but you know you do better with someone to work with, to bounce off of. Look at all the good work you've done with Amanda lately…" Billy trailed off and looked at him speculatively.

"Oh hell, no!" Lee interrupted him before he could get any further with that train of thought. "This isn't about having a partner, Billy and it sure as hell isn't about trying to make Amanda one. She is my friend, but she isn't my partner. You know how I know that?" He leaned forward and placed his hands on the edge of Billy's desk so that they were more eye to eye. "Because I've had a partner – a partner's a guy who laughs at your jokes, loans you his socks, and one day, takes a bullet through the head for you!" He sucked in a deep breath as Billy flinched, then went on with increasing volume. "And that almost happened again – and no one was even going to tell me about it! You would have let me stay on that beach and never said a word because some idiot up at the top of the food chain thought I was too important an asset to lose. More important than an innocent mother of two who is the centre of the universe to her family!"

He straightened again and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out an envelope and tossing it on Billy's desk. "And it's all moot anyway because you still lose me. I resign, effective immediately." He turned to walk to the office door, pulling up short when he realized Amanda was hovering just outside, maternal concern written all over her face. He wasn't sure how much she'd heard but it didn't matter anymore.

"Lee." He heard her soft plea as he pushed by her, but he kept moving, ignoring the shocked expressions of everyone in the bullpen as he stormed out.


	13. Bridge

He hadn't had any kind of plan when he left the Agency except to get in the Porsche and drive and yet, somehow, it didn't even surprise him when Amanda sat down beside him on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial and sat quietly, arms wrapped around her knees staring out over the Tidal Basin. He didn't acknowledge her but he didn't move away either – none of this was her fault and it was kind of comforting to have her there.

When he heard her take a deeper than normal breath, he girded himself for what he was sure was going to be a lecture on his behavior or a plea to come back to work. Instead, she stretched out her feet in front of her and leaned forward to contemplate them silently. He was almost at the point of becoming unnerved by how quiet she was when she pulled her feet back up and then leaned sideways to bump him lightly. "Yeah, that's not going to work at all."

Lee sighed and gave in. "What's not?"

"Loaning you my socks," she answered seriously. "You're so much taller than me, I just can't see how they'd fit."

The bark of laughter escaped him before he could hold it back and he felt her bump into him again but this time she stayed leaning into him, cheek on his shoulder.

"Were you friends for a long time?" she asked after a while.

"Not long enough," he joked bitterly.

"No," she agreed. "I'm sure it wasn't." She played with a loose thread on the knee of her jeans for a moment before asking, "What was his name?"

Lee turned to her in surprise, forcing her to lift her head up again. "Eric. You didn't know that?"

She could tell from the note of disbelief in his voice that he thought that was unlikely so turned to look at him steadily and gave a small shrug, "I think Mr. Melrose might have said it once but you never talk about him and I didn't like to ask."

"And nobody in the most gossip-infested spy bureau in Washington told you?"

"I knew you had a partner who died," she answered, "And I guess everyone thought I must already know all about it because we spend so much time together."

Lee was grateful that, unlike most people, Amanda managed to not make that sound like an accusation.

"He was a good friend," he said finally. "I should talk about him – he deserves to have people talk about him and remember him – but it's hard. It was my fault he was killed."

"I'm sure that's not true," said Amanda.

"I was there, Pollyanna and you weren't!" he found himself snapping at her. "We had a suspect pinned down, I was giving him covering fire… he looked back and saw a second guy we didn't know about coming up behind me. He stopped to take that guy out, right out in the open – that was all the opening they needed…" He didn't finish the sentence, just let it drift off as he gripped his knees so tightly she could see his knuckles whitening.

"Lee, that still doesn't sound to me like it was your fault. It was a dangerous situation, just like you're in all the time, the kind of thing you train for – and Eric must have trained for it too, right?" Despite the Pollyanna crack, Amanda didn't sound annoyed, just quietly certain. "If it had been the other way around, would you have done it differently? Wouldn't you have stopped to save your friend without thinking about it?

"Yes, but…."

"And if you'd been the one to die that day…" Amanda's voice faltered slightly that she'd even voiced that thought out loud. "Would you have wanted him to blame himself for it?"

"Of course not!" said Lee shortly. "But that would have been different!"

"Different how?" asked Amanda. "One agent died saving another agent – that part seems pretty simple to me. It's horrible, but you all seem to accept that as part of the job. So explain to me why it's different when the fact is, one good man died to save another good man."

"Because he was a good man who had people who cared!" Lee retorted. "He had family – parents, sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins – people who thought he mattered."

"And you think _you_ don't matter?" asked Amanda incredulously.

"Not the same way," Lee answered, the bitterness audible in his tone. "If I'd died that day, there would have been a little ceremony and a star on the memorial wall of the Agency and after a few days, a week maybe, people would have forgotten all about me."

"That's not true and you know it," said Amanda, sounding angry for the first time.

"Do I?" said Lee hopelessly. "Who'd miss me? The girls in the steno pool? The socialites with boring husbands? The doctors and nurses down at the med center who roll their eyes when they see me come in because I'm such a pain in the ass?"

"I'd miss you."

Lee turned to look at her, an exasperated look on his face. "If I'd died that day instead of Eric, you wouldn't even have met me."

"No, but if you had, and I hadn't met you, I'd probably be dead," she replied.

"Oh come on…"

"And so would a lot of other people," she went on, not letting him interrupt. "No, Lee, I mean it. Now, look," she lifted a hand and started to enumerate her reasons, "If I hadn't known all you spies the day I met Alexi, I might never have known I had to get him away from that guy and he and his parents might still be locked up having to work for those guys. And because, thanks to you, I worked at the Agency, I recognized Penny that day and we got to be friends so she had people around her when Bo tried to kill her. Those people would all be worse off because you weren't here."

"Amanda, that's all very nice of you to say but-"…

"What if Glaser had picked another agent to test his theories on? Someone who wasn't as loyal as you are to Mr. Melrose? Someone who didn't fight it so hard he almost fried his own brain before he could be rewired into an assassin? Mr. Melrose would be dead too. And then Jeanie and the girls and his brand new granddaughter – they'd all be missing someone who mattered to them too! So don't you try and tell me you don't matter!"

Her voice had been rising the whole time she'd been speaking, to the point now where a few people had turned their heads to see who was arguing at such a solemn place. In an effort to calm her down, Lee dropped his voice to an urgent whisper.

"Okay, okay… But all those things could have happened if you'd met Eric instead."

Amanda jumped up so that he had to look up now and shook her head firmly. "No, they wouldn't have. Those things happened because you knocked me down on a train platform and had an allergic reaction that kept you in the hospital long enough for us to meet again and because of all that, somehow we ended up friends. And with all those people that you say loved Eric, he wouldn't have needed another friend the way that you did or that I did. I mean, just think – if it hadn't happened the way it did, I might still be alive but I'd probably be married to Dean!"

He couldn't help laughing at the look of dismay on her face as that thought occurred to her. "Okay, so maybe it wasn't my _fault_ exactly but…"

"Lee!" Amanda threw her hands up in exasperation. "You're worse than my boys for getting a dumb idea and sticking with it!" She flopped back down beside him and sighed. "Okay, let me try this a different way… Have you ever been inside there?" She gestured to the rotunda behind them.

"Of course."

"So you know the Declaration of Independence is carved into the wall, right? _We hold these truths to be self-evident_?"

Lee couldn't figure out where she was going with it but nodded anyway.

" _That all men are created equal_." She turned to look at him, looking serious when she saw his confusion. "All men are created equal," she repeated. "Now from everything you've said, Eric was a good man, a well-liked man, a man who mattered. But you're a good man too – and you matter to the people who care about you and who you care about, no matter how much you hide behind that I-don't-care attitude of yours. And Eric may have had family who cared about him, but you must have people who care about you too because you are a good, honorable, patriotic man and that doesn't just happen. But you are still just a man, you know, not a superhero who has to take all the burdens of the world on his shoulders because you feel responsible. For better or worse, the great Scarecrow is just equal, you know what I mean? Not any more or less than anyone, okay?" She'd run out of breath finally and reached out to grab his knee while she studied his face until he gave in and nodded agreement. She let herself smile a little bit. "Good," she said.

Lee gave off a small chuckle and shook his head with amusement at her pleasure at having gotten through to him. He could feel his spirits lift a little; it was oddly reassuring that Amanda could see past his bluster – almost as reassuring as it was annoying. He tensed though as he recognized the look come over her face that said something had just occurred to her, and from the looks of it, not something good.

"Lee? When you came to rescue me and you said Plan A was a cyanide capsule? Were you just kidding?"

"Well of course, I was kidding," he laughed. "I knew you wouldn't have anything like that on you."

"No, I mean… do you have something like that? I mean, if they had really gotten you and not me and Francine, if it had just been you and you thought they weren't going to make the trade… what would you have done?"

"Well, no I don't really have a capsule – that's a little James Bond even for us – but we do have…" he paused, looking uncomfortable as if he wasn't sure how to finish.

"You have?" Amanda pushed him.

"We learn ways to make sure we don't reveal information," he hedged.

"To escape, you mean?" she asked.

"Well, if we can but I meant something more, um, permanent. Not cyanide, but you know… ways"

Amanda studied him and he could see the moment where she pieced it together when her eyes went wide with shock. "No!"

"Yes, Amanda," he said, sounding a bit like a parent lecturing a child. "If it's us or them, an agent has to be willing for it to be _us_ to make sure _they_ don't succeed."

She sat staring at him for a few more moments of silence before saying seriously, "Mr. Melrose is right – you need a partner."

"I what? Oh for crying out loud, don't you start! I do _not_ need a partner!" Lee fired back.

"Well you need someone who will keep you from doing anything that foolish." she answered.

"And how do you figure that a partner would help?" he asked, genuinely curious to see where the Amanda logic was going to lead them this time.

"Because you might be dumb enough to sacrifice yourself, but you wouldn't go too far if someone else was depending on you." Amanda was nodding now as if she could see it all clearly in front of her. She could see the cynical expression on his face and rushed on. "You think you don't matter to anybody, but you'd matter to them! And you'd try and escape because you wouldn't want them to think it was their fault, wouldn't you?"

Lee glared at her for a moment then dropped his head and shook it from side to side, trying to hide his amusement at how skillfully she'd just punctured everything he'd said in the last fifteen minutes. "Oh Amanda…" he sighed. He looked up finally to find her watching him with a hopeful expression.

"So will you? Get a partner, I mean?"

"Are you applying for the position?" he asked, teasing her.

Amanda looked stunned. "Me?" she squeaked. "Oh no, I couldn't be your _partner_! You need somebody who knows how to shoot and things like that and … you know… someone smart and brave and who can get you out of trouble…"

"So, someone exactly like you," he grinned at her. "But who can hit?"

Amanda went still, then gave out one of her deep chuckles at the backhanded compliment. "Yeah."

"Tell you what," Lee said, standing up and holding out a hand to help her to her feet. "I will consider agreeing to a partner and in the meantime, if you can stay out of trouble, you can keep helping me out with stuff and I'll try not to do anything that would mean you having to go to my funeral. Deal?"

Amanda's fingers, which had reached out to grasp his, suddenly squeezed tight. "That's not funny, Lee," she said quietly.

He could tell that that last jab of dark humour had gone over the line. "You're right, I'm sorry. Forgive me?"

"Of course," she said, squeezing his fingers again before letting go. "But you'll really think about a partner?" she asked, in a voice that was much too light, like she was trying to hide that she was still upset by his last comment.

"Well, I would but it hardly matters now," Lee shrugged as they began to walk down the steps toward their cars. "Since I handed in my resignation before I left."

"Oh well, about that" said Amanda, flushing guiltily. "You have time to change your mind about that." She turned to meet Lee's suspicious look. "Mr. Melrose put it at the very bottom of his Inbox and mentioned it might be days before he got through everything in there to see what it said."

"Oh he did, did he?" Lee glared at her with fresh eyes. "Did he send you to find me too? Try and charm me back because he thought I wouldn't yell at you?"

"Not directly, no," admitted Amanda. "He just kind of… looked at me when he was putting the letter at the bottom of the pile. I would have come anyway though!" she rushed to add. "I was worried about you."

Lee grunted noncommittally. It was odd to think there was someone who _worried_ about him, beyond his value as an agent or whether his behaviour would reflect badly on somebody's reputation with the Air Force brass… He shook himself and glanced back at the subdued Amanda who was still walking alongside him silently.

"How did you find me anyway?" he asked suddenly. "I didn't even know where I was headed when I left the Agency and I had a pretty good head start."

"Ah. Well." Amanda was flushing and biting her lip in that way he already knew was her guilt tell. "I had some help." She glanced up at him then went on in a rush. "I got in my car and I was trying to decide if you'd probably just head home or if you'd go to Monk's or Ned's and then…" She pointed her finger off to her right and made a little swirling motion. "The radio came on and um…"

Lee stopped dead and swivelled to look at her. "Blue Leader was on _your_ radio? _Blue Leader_ told you where I was?"

"Well, yeah, sort of" she sighed. "I mean it still creeps me out that he can do that… She caught herself from adding ' _even though we've met him'_ and went on quickly. "And he didn't say how he knew where you were, he just said this was probably a good place to start. Do you think he has tracking devices on all our cars?" she asked, suddenly wide-eyed.

"Are you still worried he's gonna track your visits to the drive-thru?" teased Lee. He turned and looked back at the memorial. "No, I think it was probably just a good guess on his part. Eric and I used to come here after a successful case. You know, sneak a little hip flask along, toast our contribution to democracy and the pursuit of happiness, that kind of thing…"

"Sounds nice," ventured Amanda.

"It was," agreed Lee. He started to walk again, slowing to let her fall into step beside him. He watched her out of the corner of his eye. It was crazy but once again, here they were with Amanda having gone through an ordeal that was his fault, and still somehow managing to be the one cheering _him_ up when it was all over. He didn't know how she did it but she always made things simpler… lighter… better… He took a breath and said, "But maybe it's time for a new tradition."

He could see her mouth quirk up, mischievously. "Well, I'm not much for hip flasks but I could buy you a cup of coffee and a slice of pie."

"Well, funnily enough, someone left a cake on my kitchen counter. It's a bit stale but…"

"Oh my gosh! I completely forgot that!"

"And a t-shirt."

Amanda's eyes closed and she made a small embarrassed noise.

"And a bra," Lee added, trying to keep a straight face.

Her eyes shot open then and she turned on him, with outrage. "Lee! You know that is not mine!"

He turned toward, eyes twinkling. "The shirt? Or the bra? Because it's certainly not mine."

"Yes it is! I mean, no, of course not _yours_! I mean, the shirt is mine but the… other thing must be from one of your-" Amanda was scarlet now, almost speechless until she saw how hard Lee was trying not to laugh. Her mouth snapped shut and she stopped dead as she saw her chance for revenge. He was a few steps ahead of her before he noticed and turned to find her glaring at him, hands on her hips. "Well, what if it is mine? Would that be so hard to believe?"

Lee looked disconcerted for a minute before his slow grin spread across his face. He could, he thought, point out that the bra currently sitting in his laundry pile was a 38DD and Amanda, while perfectly proportioned, was definitely not going to fill that out, but when she was looking at him like she was right now, all bristles and indignation, he knew he couldn't.

"Of course it wouldn't," he said smoothly and enjoyed the look of surprise cross her face. "You're a Hot Mama after all. I just wanted to see if you'd admit it."

Amanda managed to keep glaring for at least another ten seconds before slumping into laughter. "Of course I'm not going to admit it – you know perfectly well it's not mine."

"So… cake and coffee chez Stetson? You can finish Jamie's cake while I guard the door from armed invaders this time."

"Promises, promises," she teased back, giving him a soft hip check as they started to walk toward their cars. "But I'll bake you something else since I can do Jamie's cake at home now."

"You got a repairman already? You must know a guy."

"Turns out, I do," Amanda chuckled. "I didn't get a chance to tell you that yet. I came down this morning and what do you think I found? Leatherneck standing in my kitchen taking the oven apart and flirting with my mother!"

"I'll bet she enjoyed that," Lee laughed along with her as she nodded. "How did he explain who he was?"

"He told the truth pretty much as far as I can tell. That he works for IFF, he's in charge of production vehicles but that he learned how to fix darn near everything growing up on a farm in Oklahoma."

"Well, he is a wizard with all things mechanical. And I'm sure you'll be very happy with him as your new step-father."

"Oh no, my mother has her eye on him as a boyfriend for me," Amanda replied, turning bright eyes on him.

"Really?"

"Oh yes – how did she put it?" She began to expertly mimic her mother. 'You know, Amanda, money can be spent and looks can fade, but you'll never be unhappy with a man who's good with his hands!'"

Lee took the opportunity to seize one of Amanda's hands in his and lifted it to kiss it with a wink. "Your mother is very smart – just like her daughter!"


	14. Tag: Pass the Parcel

Jamie had the blissed-out expression of an eight-year old whose wildest dreams had come true as they walked out of the theater, Amanda and Dotty corralling the herd of ten boys who were all simultaneously trying to act out the fight scenes and clamoring to describe their favorite parts, flinging imaginary disks and riding imaginary light cycles.

"If they're like this now, I can't even imagine what they'll be like when we get them back to the house and give them cake and ice cream," commented Dotty good-naturedly.

"Mom! When we get home, can we get out the Frisbee and try some of those tricks?" asked Phillip.

"Sure," answered Amanda distractedly as she counted heads. Realizing she was one short, she turned and saw Jamie standing stock-still, mouth and eyes wide open as he stared across the lobby.

"Jamie, what's wrong?"

"Mom… they're here."

"Who's here?" she asked, turning to follow the direction of his gaze.

"The people from the movie– they're _here_!" he whispered as if he was afraid the mirage might vanish.

Amanda peered through the crowd, trying to understand what he meant and then the crowd parted and she realized Lee, Efraim and Francine were lurking across the lobby, having obviously snuck in to see the show too – probably Efraim's idea. She could see what Jamie meant – Francine did look a lot like the girl in the movie and with his glasses and curly hair, Efraim did make a passable Rom or Rack or whatever that guy's name had been. And if she squinted, well, yes actually, Lee did look almost exactly like the movie's hero. She bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud as a voice at her elbow suddenly said, "Mrs. King?"

"Yes?" she turned, realizing it was the theater manager she'd talked to about bringing the birthday party here.

"Then you must be Jamie, the birthday boy?" the manager beamed at him.

"Uh huh," Jamie answered not really listening as he continued to stare at the trio across the lobby who were studiously trying to look inconspicuous.

"Well, I have a little something for you," said the manager, handing him a large box. "It was dropped off earlier by someone who thought you might like it."

Even Jamie couldn't resist the distraction of a mystery gift and he began to pull at the wrapping paper. Amanda looked over and caught Lee's eye, lifting an eyebrow to ask the silent question. He'd barely had time to wink at her and make a circling gesture to include the other two before Jamie was whooping with joy. "Mom! It's a bunch of action figures from the movie! And lightcycles!" He gasped and reached in for the last item "And a video of the movie! Can we watch it again when we get home? Please?"

"I don't see why not," she answered him and watched as he darted over to join his friends to show off his loot. She glanced back, but the trio had vanished.

"Spies," she shook her head affectionately. "Everything has to be so mysterious."


End file.
